Fantastic Forts, Summer 2015
Five days, eight amazing forts! Our Fantastic Forts camp was a week of
creativity and collaboration. The forts created offered a variety of businesses
to the fort community, with campers using white quartz as their tender for
trade.
Campers made signs for their forts, painted treasure bags for the quartz they collected, wove grass mats on a primitive loom (used either as doors to their forts or as floor coverings) and created fort artwork.
Our Fantastic Forts camp was an amazing week of construction, creativity and collaboration. Below are some excerpts from interviews with our fort-builders on Friday…
The Arcade: “It was hard to find the right spot for our fort. We were just looking around then R. saw these two trees we could use. It was hard work finding all of the sticks we needed.” “There are five games people can play for 1-quartz each.”
Hardware Store: “Our fort is a hardware store and there is free delivery with every purchase. We used lots of natural items and we all worked together to build it but C. was the boss.” C. responded, “I didn’t decide that.” His two co-fort team members quickly chimed in, “No, but we decided that because he’s a really good boss. He’s nice and he’s fair.”
The Bank: “We built a path to our fort and it’s a really big fort. Our fort is “The Bank” and the safety deposit boxes are here, under these rocks.” “We also made a knocker you can use when you come to do business at the bank.”
Another Fort: “Our fort doesn’t have a name. We couldn’t find any really great spots and then we found THIS spot!” “Our fort has a garbage disposal.” (a hole that was once where a large branch had been on the side of a tree at the fort entrance) “It mainly works on pine cones and clay and we use this stick when it gets jammed.”
Fort Fire Museum Fort: “The shade spot in our fort is the place where we go to relax.” “Basically, first we were just scavenging for materials and thought this was a good tree to build our fort on and then we built it. We found Indian Pipe, a flower with chlorophyll growing by our fort so we put a circle of rocks around it to protect it.”
Fantastic Forts was indeed a FANTASTIC and busy week of fun in the woods!
Campers made signs for their forts, painted treasure bags for the quartz they collected, wove grass mats on a primitive loom (used either as doors to their forts or as floor coverings) and created fort artwork.
Our Fantastic Forts camp was an amazing week of construction, creativity and collaboration. Below are some excerpts from interviews with our fort-builders on Friday…
The Arcade: “It was hard to find the right spot for our fort. We were just looking around then R. saw these two trees we could use. It was hard work finding all of the sticks we needed.” “There are five games people can play for 1-quartz each.”
Hardware Store: “Our fort is a hardware store and there is free delivery with every purchase. We used lots of natural items and we all worked together to build it but C. was the boss.” C. responded, “I didn’t decide that.” His two co-fort team members quickly chimed in, “No, but we decided that because he’s a really good boss. He’s nice and he’s fair.”
The Bank: “We built a path to our fort and it’s a really big fort. Our fort is “The Bank” and the safety deposit boxes are here, under these rocks.” “We also made a knocker you can use when you come to do business at the bank.”
Another Fort: “Our fort doesn’t have a name. We couldn’t find any really great spots and then we found THIS spot!” “Our fort has a garbage disposal.” (a hole that was once where a large branch had been on the side of a tree at the fort entrance) “It mainly works on pine cones and clay and we use this stick when it gets jammed.”
Fort Fire Museum Fort: “The shade spot in our fort is the place where we go to relax.” “Basically, first we were just scavenging for materials and thought this was a good tree to build our fort on and then we built it. We found Indian Pipe, a flower with chlorophyll growing by our fort so we put a circle of rocks around it to protect it.”
Fantastic Forts was indeed a FANTASTIC and busy week of fun in the woods!
From Spark to Flame; our Trailblazers
Our Trailblazers have been busy this
year! This past fall, they selected and developed a new fort site and this
spring, in addition to working on their forts, they’ve been digging deep into primitive fire making and learning to
start a fire using flint and steel.
Over numerous weeks, our Trailblazers collected materials to create their own fire making boxes. They also learned how to make char cloth. Instructors, Shelby and Tara, have used each session to advance their skills and scaffold their learning through demonstrations and hands-on projects, all to help get them ready to fly solo.
Anyone who’s ever tried building a campfire using flint and steel knows that there is nothing easy about it! No matches and only natural materials. You have to know what to gather, how best to use what you do gather and in what order, how to make char cloth, and more. Then comes the hardest part; actually pulling all of those skills and materials together successfully. It takes a whole lot of persistence and practice.
In the words of some of our Trailblazers, here are some of the things they’ve been learning all along the way:
Sol (age 11): “You have to find dry wood that is pencil size and small things so that he fire can burn the small sticks before you add big sticks. We also collected cedar bark and rubbed it out to get all of the fibers and this is called tinder. We use the tinder to ignite the fire. To make it ignite really easily onto the tinder, you use char cloth. I really like making the char cloth. It was fun to see the box turn different colors and to see the cloth turn black. I’m excited about seeing all of the hard work we did pay off as a really cool fire!”
Patrick (age 11): “I liked learning all of the things that you have to collect for a fire and how to use it all. I’m excited about making a fire using my fire box.”
Camilo (age 9): “My favorite thing about being a Trailblazer is that we actually get to learn how to survive in nature.”
Later this month, our Trailblazers will have an opportunity to apply their new skills at our first-ever Trailblazer overnight campout!
~Wendy Banning, Director
Over numerous weeks, our Trailblazers collected materials to create their own fire making boxes. They also learned how to make char cloth. Instructors, Shelby and Tara, have used each session to advance their skills and scaffold their learning through demonstrations and hands-on projects, all to help get them ready to fly solo.
Anyone who’s ever tried building a campfire using flint and steel knows that there is nothing easy about it! No matches and only natural materials. You have to know what to gather, how best to use what you do gather and in what order, how to make char cloth, and more. Then comes the hardest part; actually pulling all of those skills and materials together successfully. It takes a whole lot of persistence and practice.
In the words of some of our Trailblazers, here are some of the things they’ve been learning all along the way:
Sol (age 11): “You have to find dry wood that is pencil size and small things so that he fire can burn the small sticks before you add big sticks. We also collected cedar bark and rubbed it out to get all of the fibers and this is called tinder. We use the tinder to ignite the fire. To make it ignite really easily onto the tinder, you use char cloth. I really like making the char cloth. It was fun to see the box turn different colors and to see the cloth turn black. I’m excited about seeing all of the hard work we did pay off as a really cool fire!”
Patrick (age 11): “I liked learning all of the things that you have to collect for a fire and how to use it all. I’m excited about making a fire using my fire box.”
Camilo (age 9): “My favorite thing about being a Trailblazer is that we actually get to learn how to survive in nature.”
Later this month, our Trailblazers will have an opportunity to apply their new skills at our first-ever Trailblazer overnight campout!
~Wendy Banning, Director